''Nightwood'' is a 1936 novel by American author
Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes (, June 12, 1892 – June 18, 1982) was an American artist, illustrator, journalist, and writer who is perhaps best known for her novel ''Nightwood'' (1936), a cult classic of lesbian fiction and an important work of modernist litera ...
that was first published by publishing house
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...
. It is one of the early prominent novels to portray explicit homosexuality between women, and as such can be considered
lesbian literature
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics.
Fiction that falls into this category may be of any genr ...
.
[Austen, p. 82][Young, p. 153.]
It is also notable for its intense,
gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
prose style.
The novel employs
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
techniques such as its unusual form or narrative and can be considered
metafiction
Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story ...
,
and it was praised by other modernist authors including
T. S. Eliot, who edited the novel, helped publish it, and wrote an introduction included in the 1937 edition published by
Harcourt, Brace
Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City an ...
. As a ''
roman à clef
''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...
'', the novel features a thinly veiled portrait of Barnes in the character of Nora Flood, whereas Nora's lover Robin Vote is a composite of
Thelma Wood
Thelma Ellen Wood (July 3, 1901 – December 10, 1970) was an American artist, specialising in the traditional fine line drawing technique known as Silverpoint. She was noted for her hectic private life, and her lesbian relationship with Djuna B ...
and the
Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Jenny Petherbridge is
Henriette Alice McCrea-Metcalf
Henrietta (Henriette) Alice McCrea-Metcalf (August 4, 1888 – May 27, 1981) was an American born, French raised translator; she was one of the partners of Thelma Wood and was immortalized by Djuna Barnes in ''Nightwood''.
Biography
Henrietta Ali ...
, and Felix Volkbein is derived from
Frederick Philip Grove Frederick may refer to:
People
* Frederick (given name), the name
Nobility
Anhalt-Harzgerode
*Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670)
Austria
* Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198
* Frederi ...
.
Synopsis
Bow Down
Felix Volkbein is born in early 1880 to Guido and Hedvig Volkbein, a Jew of Italian descent and a Viennese woman of great beauty, respectively. Guido died six months previously, and Hedvig dies too, at the age of forty-five, shortly after giving birth to Felix.
Guido had pretended to be of baronial descent, adapting to Christian customs, but is constantly haunted by his Jewishness. He lives as an outcast. Hedvig is convinced that she is a Baroness by marriage, though. They reside in a house overlooking the
Prater
The Prater () is a large public park in Leopoldstadt, Vienna, Austria. The Wurstelprater, an amusement park that is often simply called "Prater", lies in one corner of the Wiener Prater and includes the Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel.
Name
The n ...
in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, filled with ornaments of a false lineage, including paintings of Guido's claimed parents, a
coat-of-arms
A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its w ...
of Guido's own proclamation, and three pianos, upon which Hedvig plays waltzes in a masculine style.
Thirty years later, Felix turns up from nowhere with the paintings of Guido's "parents", which bear an accidental resemblance to the man. His aunt informs him of his presumed baronial heritage, and Felix takes it up readily, along with an obsession for a sort of nobility and royalty. He comes by good money, masters seven languages, and though well-known, is not popular. He is usually seen alone, dressed in part for the evening and in part for the day.
In 1920, he lives in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, keeping two servants for their physical resemblances to royalty, insinuating himself among the actresses and circus performers of Europe in their salons, who have taken on titles too, but for different purposes. He finds a sense of peace here.
One of these performers is Frau Mann, a trapeze artist. One night in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, Mann intends to introduce Felix to a Count Onatorio Altamonte, but they walk in on Dr. Matthew O'Connor, an Irishman from
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, presiding as interim host until the Count has appeared. He holds a certain interest in
gynecology
Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...
and considers himself an amusing predicament.
O'Connor speaks about history and legend, on humor, then proceeds, running over Mann's interjection, to describe a former circus performer in the ''Cirque de Paris'', focusing especially on tattoos which O'Connor calls the ''ameublement'' of depravity, and which the performer calls beauty. Felix asks O'Connor about Vienna, seeing that the doctor has stolen the show. A young woman in her late twenties doing publicity for the circus comes over; she is Nora Flood. The doctor claims to have helped to bring her into this world.
Felix bursts into laughter at a certain phrase of the doctor's, then finds himself distressed at having done so. The doctor comes and claims not to be or have a variety of things, then finishes off with a sweeping statement about love and lies. He then continues by comparing the
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
and the
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
churches and their methods of storytelling, and their effects.
He moves on to sorrow, after a chide from Nora, then describes a memory of being in a town under bombardment. He had rushed for the cellar, and inside was an old Breton woman, her cow, and a Dubliner praying. Then, under a flash of lightning, he saw that the cow had tears all over her eyes, and he began to talk to the cow. Then comes an aside recalling an encounter with a headsman.
Suddenly, the Count appears with a young girl and tells them all to go, which Matthew says, after the trio are in a cab, is because the Count thinks that he has had "his last erection." Frau Mann bids them go for drinks, and then Felix disembarks. It is snowing.
In Heinrich's, Matthew says that Felix reminds him of a Mme. Basquette, who was "damned from the waist down", without legs. She had wheeled herself around the
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...
on a board. Then one day a sailor saw her, wanted her, and raped her. When he was done, he put her down five miles outside of town. She had to wheel herself back into town, crying all the while.
Then Matthew describes his parents and what they looked like. Frau Mann mentions an album of her own, falls asleep, and then the doctor leaves, foisting the bill upon her.
La Somnambule
Matthew lives on the
rue Servandoni, close to the
church of Saint-Sulpice
, image = Paris Saint-Sulpice Fassade 4-5 A.jpg
, image_size =
, pushpin map = Paris
, pushpin label position =
, coordinates =
, location = Place Saint-Sulpice 6th arrond ...
, and frequents the neighborhood ''place'', its environs, and a local café. He is often seen walking alone, going to Mass, where he uses the holy water liberally, and sometimes, late at night, before entering the cafe, gazing up at the towers of the church and the fountain in the ''place''.
Now, a few weeks after the Berlin encounter, he brings Felix to the cafe. Felix considers Matthew a liar in behavior. Matthew talks about Jews and the Irish, moving from knowledge to societal problems in a medical metaphor. Then grief and laughter, denying that he is
neurasthenic
Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...
, and waiting. Felix muses about beverages unique to cities. An employee from a local hotel approaches the doctor regarding a lady who has fainted. Matthew tells Felix to pay the bill and to follow him, which Felix does. They go upstairs to a room full of a variety of plants surrounding a bed, upon which lies a young woman.
The woman is disheveled, has a scent approaching fungi, and her skin resembles flora. She seems to evoke the
somnambule and the paintings of
Henri Rousseau
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Jardin du Luxembourg
The Jardin du Luxembourg (), known in English as the Luxembourg Garden, colloquially referred to as the Jardin du Sénat (Senate Garden), is located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. Creation of the garden began in 1612 when Marie de' ...
, Felix talking about himself, Robin silent. She is gracious but fading, her smile a little bitter, and her presence, to Felix, painful but a happiness.
They spend much time in museums in the days following, and Felix is surprised to learn that Robin has a taste not just for the excellent but also for the debased and decadent. Her sense of touch seems to be acute, and her hands are sensual. She dresses atemporally but not contemporaneously. His love for her seems fated, and she agrees to marry him.
He takes her to Vienna, showing her all the historic buildings, but is only capable of repeating what he has read about them. He speaks to her in German; saying that life is eternal, and its beauty lies in that fact.
In their hotel that night, Robin opens the window while Felix speaks of history, and Felix, looking at Robin, sees that she is insufficient for his hopes. Returning to Paris, he sees Robin as an enigma, but places his faith in her Christian proclivities, though her attention seems to be taken by something not yet extant. Felix tries to sway her to his chosen destiny, but continuously fails.
Robin becomes pregnant and takes to wandering to other cities alone for long lengths of time, having become aware of some empty space in herself. Then she takes to Catholicism, praying in many churches, thinking of her son's purpose, of the
Emperor
An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...
, and of many historical and fictional women. She does not pray for damnation or forgiveness, but outlines her predicament.
Felix returns that night to find Robin having falling asleep reading the memoirs of the
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusat ...
, one line being underlined. He asks her what is wrong; they are unable to speak to one another. That night, she gives birth to a small and sad boy. Felix finds her one night seemingly about to smash their son upon the ground, but then she brings him down. Robin takes to wandering again, and is almost never home. One night, they have a confrontation about how Robin did not want their son, and Robin leaves Paris for a few months, reappearing later with Nora Flood, and unwilling to explain what she has been up to. The doctor says that she has been in America.
Night Watch
Nora Flood is introduced as a native of western America, Christian by temperament, and proprietor of a salon in which outcasts of all sorts gathered. She loves widely, and gives herself up for everyone. She appears to constantly record some sort of music, and her eyes unconsciously augment what she sees with her own unconscious terms. She lacks humor, and lacks ignominy, which draws people to her and frightens them. The world to her appears a curiosity, with her outside it, preoccupied otherwise, until she meets Robin.
In the fall of 1923, she meets Robin at a circus in New York, and after one of the lionesses in the pit takes a swipe at Robin, leave together at Robin's behest. They begin their relationship then, living together at Nora's apartment until midwinter, traveling across Europe until reaching Paris, where Nora buys an apartment on the ''rue du Cherche-Midi'' which Robin has chosen. They evolve such that Nora comes to be alone in the apartment with knickknacks and other objects, reminders of their relationship, for most of the time. Robin is now beyond simple or conventional description, and has molded Nora to her purposes. Nora begins to dream of Robin in danger, and of taking Robin's body down into the earth with her.
When they are together, though, Robin sings strange songs in many languages which Nora occasionally tries to emulate, but haltingly, and which Nora occasionally interrupts with questions. The singing persists, and Nora comes to the conclusion that the only way to keep Robin for herself is through death.
They stay together for years, and as time goes on, Robin's departures increase in frequency. Nora would track Robin's preparations for departure by the sounds of her dressing, and when Robin leaves, she tells Nora not to wait for her. At first, Nora goes with Robin, but as Nora begins to feel intrusive or forgotten, Nora stays home. She longs for Robin desperately, though, and then goes out where she might not see Robin.
Matthew, seeing Nora walking, notes her as a religious woman without the refuge of the faith, looking for Robin, who she is afraid to find. Nora searches for not Robin, but traces of her presence. Then, returning home, an interminable night begins. She becomes agitatated, sleeps and wakes again, then finally dreams a dream which had previously been incomplete in some way.
In this dream, Nora sees herself in her grandmother's room. Looking down, she sees Robin lying on the floor far below, and calls to her, but the louder she calls, the farther away the floor goes. The structure of the dream gives her grandmother's room, though the opposite of any room associated with said grandmother outside dreams, the presence of her grandmother. She remembers happening upon her cross-dressed grandmother as a child, which now indicates to Nora some sort of disfigurement and eternalization of Robin.
Nora wakes, and resumes walking, and looks out into the garden, seeing the light of Robin's eyes emerge from shadow, gazes at her. Nora sees now that Robin is with another woman, falls to her knees, and gasps.
"The Squatter"
Jenny Petherbridge is a middle-aged widow married four times. Her body does not as a whole go together, and she looks old, though she gives the impression of being pregnant. She dislikes dressing well, and likes small jade or ivory elephants for their luck. She fills her house with accouterments of other people's lives—she wears someone else's marriage ring, keeps other people's books, and lives among the things as a visitor. She moves about her house nervously, and speaks in anecdotes and what seem not to be her words.
She has an obsession with theater, gives the impression of erudition, though she has read sparely, and absorbs other people's facts in her passion to be a person to such a degree that she cannot think for herself. Her actions and words are overwrought. This is particularly true for love—she cannot fall in love herself, but acts what she knows of it, using Robin and Nora as an example—she had met Robin, and through Robin, knew of Nora, in 1927, and then took their love for her own.
In subsequent meetings with Robin, Jenny is always early and Robin late. Jenny fears meeting Nora, and so they meet in expensive restaurants, like
the ''Ambassadeurs'', Jenny having the money.
They meet once at the opera, where Jenny spies the doctor, and knowing of his propensity for gossip, implies that this was her first encounter with Robin. Jenny, going home with Robin and the doctor, finds actresses waiting. Fates are discussed, palms read, and mention of Robin's special circumstances are made, whereupon Jenny calls for a carriage ride, confusing the doctor. Three carriages appear; they have been on call for an hour. Jenny, Robin, the doctor, a young Englishwomen of whom Jenny is jealous, and a small girl (Sylvia) board the first carriage, and they go off.
The doctor begins musing about his childhood, when his father did not love him. The doctor had joined the army in an effort to engender that love, and then his father, not wishing to see his son killed, seeks love and reconciliation, which is had. Jenny begins to cry. The doctor asks why lesbianism must exist with its anguish and motherhood, and argues with Jenny over love; Robin calls out Jenny for talking while knowing nothing. Jenny strikes Robin repeatedly, drawing blood. Sylvia cries out to let her go, the carriage arrives at Nora and Robin's apartment, Robin leaves, followed by Jenny.
Shortly afterwards, Nora and Robin separate; after that, Robin and Jenny leave for America.
Watchman, What of the Night?
Nora, in the middle of the night, seeks the doctor in his apartment to ask about the night. His apartment is cluttered with books, medical instruments, and women's clothing; the room seems muscular though degraded. She comes upon the doctor rouged, in a women's nightgown, and otherwise made up; upon realizing Nora’s presence, the doctor takes off his wig and hides most of himself under the sheets. Nora thinks about gowns, and notes how the night transforms a person's identity, even when the person is asleep, and then the doctor—Matthew Mighty-grain-of-salt-Dante O’Connor—relates how the day and night are connected through their division. Nights of one place are not that of another, he says, and French nights are sought by every country. The difference there is that the French think of night and day as continuous, that they might revolve about the Great Enigma, which cannot be perceived head-on.
The doctor rants about life for a bit, then asks Nora to think of the night and day as the French do, and also to be like them in more general aspects. He returns to night and day, saying that Americans separate the two for fear of mystery and indignity. He cries about anguish, causing Nora to despair about Robin and being happy. Then he goes on about sleepers and history and dreams, and transformations then, particularly with sleepwalking. We do a great many things in sleep, according to him, much of which requires guilty immunity. It brings out baser aspects of the self, and for that the night and dreams trouble us. He then implies that Robin and Nora will be bound forever.
He criticizes Anglo-Saxons for washing sin away with water, for it only cleanses sin itself; Europeans bathe in dust, and with disorder holding a balance. The French do not reject their sin as Americans do, and are wise for it; Americans wash away their identity this way. Nora asks how the doctor stands such a price for his wisdom, and receives no straight answer.
The doctor reveals that he lost his left kidney fighting for France in the war, and hates it, though he'd do it again in a pinch. He explores how he might have been a girl in the past, or in past lives, and how that residual memory haunts him. He wishes terribly for children and knitting—to cook for a man and give him children. Then he goes on about
cruising, of lesbianism, and birth. Nora tries to interrupt to get her questions answered, to no avail. The doctor comes to Jenny, and describes her character as he perceives it. He sees her very clearly. He describes seeing her first see Robin at the
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
, then showing
Rigoletto
''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play ''Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had cont ...
, and knowing that this spelled trouble. He had taken them to a Catholic church. He states that Jenny and Robin and Nora will be entangled forever—Nora and Robin, who should have been together, and Jenny, snatching at the bits left over. He goes off on Jenny again to Nora.
Then he recounts the house-carriage sequence from his perspective. He saw how Jenny is desperate for Robin, and perused Jenny's collection with scorn. He thought of how things are well, then remembered life and death, and mourned for his spirit and animals about to be birthed. Then he saw the English girl pleased and frightened, the child—Sylvia—frightened, sitting still but running. Then he saw Jenny shaking, and Robin bleeding. He screamed, and thought how Nora would leave Robin someday, but they should be connected forever.
Where the Tree Falls
Felix, having resigned from the bank, has traveled to many countries, still fascinated with the past. Occasionally, he writes to the press about a noble, but is never published. He also writes to noble houses, but is never replied to. Now he prepares papers for the Pope, for his child seems to be born to holy decay.
His son Guido is mentally deficient, emotionally excessive, obsessed with death, very short, bespectacled, and clumsy. Guido wishes to enter the church; Felix had been initially surprised at this, but then accepts his son and gives up his wishes. Felix then facilitates Guido's desires as much as he can, researching litanies and monasteries and even writing to the Pope about difference in religious practice among the French and the Italians, and their relationship to time. He receives no reply, and decides to move to Vienna, but not before looking for the doctor.
He catches the doctor on the way to the café after attending a funeral of a
Kabyle man of whom he was fond. Before the doctor notices him, he sees the doctor moving as if he were much older than he was. Seeing Felix, the doctor greets him, accepts an invitation to dinner in the ''Bois''. On the way there, the doctor dreams of what he shall have for dinner—poverty has restricted his diet, and all he can think of are drinks evoking ancestral memory—before realizing that Felix is speaking to him of Robin. Felix says that his impression of her was not her, and even with others’ impressions, his confusion only grew. The doctor observes that Felix's devotion to the past is akin to a child's drawing. They continue discussing Robin and habits as identity, until they arrive at the restaurant, when Felix asks why Robin married him in the first place, and tells the doctor that Jenny has visited him. She had spoken of the doctor, referencing his daily habits and practices as an abortionist, and was there ostensibly to buy a painting of Felix's grandmother, with which he could not part. She also spoke of Robin, and how she could not understand her at all, extraordinary as she was, and also that Robin tends to dote upon her pets before she neglects them and leaves them to die. Then she shifted to Sylvia, who apparently had a special relationship with Robin, but after Sylvia returned from the holidays, Robin appeared not to remember her at all, which devastated Sylvia.
The doctor and Felix then discuss Guido, and him in relation to Robin, and destiny and history of a person and seeking those out in the abstract. The doctor comforts and advises Felix over Guido: he says that Guido is blessed, unlike most people, and is really what Felix has been looking for. They then briefly discuss Robin—she is in America, but struggling with remembering herself, and estranged from life.
Some time later, Felix, Guido, and Frau Mann enter Vienna, patronizing many cafés. Felix tends to call for militaristic and nationalistic German music. One evening, he spies someone who appears to be
Grand Duke Alexander, and, despite self-restraint, bows to him, and retreats to his carriage, rubbing oil into Guido's hands.
Go Down, Matthew
The doctor comes into Nora's apartment late one afternoon to find her writing a letter. He is exasperated, thinking that Nora ought to give Robin a rest by now. Nora is anxious; they proceed to talk at each other for a long time.
The doctor speaks of Jenny's vacillation between past and present, nostalgia, and the self-destructive effects of Nora's idolization of Robin. He moves around life and death and time. He speaks of heartbreak, and advises Nora to be careless with how she conducts her relationships. She is experiencing an “inbreeding of pain”, he says, and follows up with an anecdote about happening upon a sexual encounter between a prostitute and her client under London Bridge. Prostitutes try to recall their youth or of better days, he says. Then he jumps to Paris, and recalls a winter night when he found the
Church of Saint-Merri
The Church of Saint-Merri or ''Église Saint-Merry'') is a parish church in Paris, located near the Centre Pompidou along the rue Saint Martin, in the 4th arrondissement on the Rive Droite (Right Bank). It is dedicated to the 8th century abbot of ...
a refuge to be alone and to think. He had walked straight up to the purgatory box to demonstrate his sins, and then retreated to a corner to converse with his penis—Tiny O’Toole—and question his sexuality before the Lord. He cried, and then left, looking at the stars.
During all this time, Nora remains adamant that she must continue writing to Robin, occasionally slipping in a sentence or two between the doctor's rants. She, realizing her conflation of identity with Robin's, grows despondent, and revisits her memories with Robin. She tells of her misery.
After the doctor's Paris anecdote, Nora questions why she speaks to him, childlike that he is. The doctor picks up on the line of children, telling of a young tenor from Beirut and how he abandoned his sick son to watch the fleet in Venice. He pauses, then waxes about Robin and people's attraction to her, but Nora is not paying attention, being despondent again. She questions love, and then laments her tendency to seek out evil and degradation. She wanted power, and chose a girl resembling a boy. The doctor replies by stating that he is a liar because of people like Nora now—in pain, begging for distraction, for him to say something. As for Nora's heartbreak, it is not special; it is part of age. She has erred in attempting to know the unknowable Robin.
Nora has only ever loved Robin, and will never love anyone else the same way. The doctor and Nora talk more about love, degradation, and suffering. They pass through Robin and Nora's love to gender and codependency. Matthew calls out Nora's repeated misplaced faith, and Nora tells of when she visited Jenny the night after the fateful one in the earlier chapters. She knew Jenny to be Robin's mistress by the presence of a doll—Robin had given Nora one herself—and then Jenny makes great affectations, after which Nora realizes the hopelessness of her situation. The doll was hurting her because of what it symbolized—children of women. Nora went home afterwards and confronted Robin.
After an interlude of notes on gender and love, Nora recalls a night in
Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...
where she had been called to pick up Robin, who was too drunk to get home. Robin had, even as she was being groped by a police officer, kept up a continuous stream of insults at Nora. After a struggle to get her into bed, where she falls asleep after eating eggs, Nora wishes that Robin should die so that she could be hers forever. Nora tells Matthew how she has perceived Robin incorrectly all this time, and then how she has been mad ever since she saw Robin wake afterwards, and begs Matthew to say something.
Matthew begs Nora to stop screaming, and decries her attempts to possess and repossess Robin. Robin had put Nora away by making her her Madonna. Nora describes examples of Robin's control over her connections to other people, and how, when Nora came in late one night, Robin had broken the doll she had given Nora on the floor. They discuss dolls, devils, death, and dreams. Nora asks the doctor to tell Robin of her desire for her; the doctor refuses. They talk more of Robin, sexuality, gender identity, and unhealthy love. After a bit, the doctor complains about how Nora's heartbreak has damaged him, and how she acts because of it, as if her grief was all there was. He is not happy, but Nora uses him as a crutch. Nora tells him to listen to her. She mentions Robin in relation to sleep and control. Nora had loved her, and made Robin hate her for it, because Robin could not escape Nora.
After Robin had left with Jenny for America, Nora searched spiritually for Robin in Mediterranean ports, in places she had been, doing what she did to attempt to understand her. She tried to sleep with someone else to restart her relationship with Robin, but could not carry it through. Then, in a room off of a Neapolitan alley, she saw a girl sitting in a chair before a bed next to a gaudy altar, and, looking from the girl to the Madonna on the wall, she realized that that was all she had been to Robin—a fixed dismay. She and Robin should have shed their lives to break down to their love. Matthew, confused and shocked, leaves.
The doctor goes to his usual café, where the clientele, knowing that he is drunk, wait for the doctor to speak. He does, and after a few topics, an unfrocked priest, a friend of the doctor's, invites him for a drink, and the doctor does. The priest asks him if he were ever really married. The doctor says that he said that he was, then goes on about myths and imagination and hypotheticals. The priest asks what is in that, and gets a general flood of insults in return, cursing, at the end, Nora and Jenny. He complains about them and Felix, and degenerates into a sad rant about his sadness and misery. Then he tells of when he saw a medicine man doing parlor tricks before beheading a boy, how a watching priest laughed then. He also speaks of when
Catherine the Great
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes
, house =
, father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
, mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp
, birth_date =
, birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...
sent for him to bleed her, upon which the unfrocked priest reproaches him to remember his century. He returns to complaining about Jenny, Robin, and Nora, and breaks down, asking the audience to let him go, the end now nothing but wrath and weeping.
The Possessed
The book circles back to when Robin and Jenny left for America. When they arrived in New York together, Robin seemed distracted, wandering about the country, entering many churches. Jenny follows close behind, noticing Robin's approaches to animalistic behavior and becoming all the more hysterical for it.
Now, Robin begins to circle closer to Nora's country—the west—sleeping in the woods, until she reaches the chapel on Nora's grounds, where she brings some of her things. She goes no further, and one night she wakes up to hear Nora's dog barking.
Nora, having since returned from Europe, notices the same barking, lets out the dog, and follows him until she sees the chapel, whereupon she begins to run, cursing and crying, until she plunges into the jamb of the door.
Inside, Robin stands before a contrived altar, and when Nora hits the jamb, she goes down before the dog, dragging her knees and swinging her head against the dog's. The dog, frightened, tries to escape, but is cornered. He grows more and more agitated, biting at Robin, and then Robin begins to bark too, to which the dog cries, and their affects decrease in intensity until Robin lies out, weeping, and the dog too lies down, head on Robin's knees.
Conception
Barnes worked on ''Nightwood'', then known as ''Bow Down'', in the summer of 1932, while at
Peggy Guggenheim
Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with t ...
's country manor, Hayford Hall, in Devonshire. Author
Charles Henri Ford
Charles Henri Ford (February 10, 1908 – September 27, 2002) was an American poet, novelist, diarist, filmmaker, photographer, and collage artist. He published more than a dozen collections of poetry, exhibited his artwork in Europe and the Uni ...
also typed part of an early version of the manuscript for Barnes while she was in Tangiers with him in 1932.
Emily Coleman heard Barnes read portions of the draft at Hayford Hall that summer and became deeply involved in helping Barnes make major revisions to the manuscript in 1934–1935, as she struggled to find a publisher. In 1935–1936, Coleman persistently contacted
T. S. Eliot, then an editor at
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...
, to get his support to publish the novel. It was published later in 1936, after Barnes and Coleman accepted Eliot's further suggested revisions.
Reception and critical analysis
Roger Austen notes that "the best known, most deeply felt, and generally best written
expatriate
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
novel of the 1930s dealing with gay themes was Djuna Barnes' ''Nightwood''".
Austen goes on to advance the notion that Barnes's depiction of Dr. O'Connor probably confounded a number of American readers because he was neither a "scamp or a monster" nor does he pay a "suitable penalty" for leading a "life of depravity".
Because of concerns about censorship, Eliot edited ''Nightwood'' to soften some language relating to sexuality and religion. An edition restoring these changes, edited by Cheryl J. Plumb, was published by
Dalkey Archive Press
Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...
in 1995. Catherine Hollis also argues that Barnes originally intended that the chapter "Night Watch" should be immediately followed by "Watchman, What of the Night?", and then "The Squatter".
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...
described ''Nightwood'' as "one of the three great prose books ever written by a woman", while
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
called it "one of the great books of the twentieth century". It was number 12 on a list of the top 100 gay and lesbian novels compiled by
The Publishing Triangle
The Publishing Triangle, founded in 1988 by Robin Hardy, is an American association of gay men and lesbians in the publishing industry. They sponsor an annual National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, and have sponsored the annual Triangle Awards prog ...
in 1999.
Anthony Slide
Anthony Slide (born 7 November 1944) is an English writer who has produced more than seventy books and edited a further 150 on the history of popular entertainment. He wrote a "letter from Hollywood" for the British ''Film Review'' magazine from ...
, a modern scholar, lists ''Nightwood'' as an example of one of the most well-known
gay novels of the first half of the 20th century in the English language, alongside
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and ...
's ''
The City and the Pillar
''The City and the Pillar'' is the third published novel by American writer Gore Vidal, written in 1946 and published on January 10, 1948. The story is about a young man who is coming of age and discovers his own homosexuality.
''The City and t ...
'',
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (February 19, 1917 – September 29, 1967) was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, ''The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter'' (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits ...
' ''
Reflections in a Golden Eye'', and
Truman Capote
Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, ...
's ''
Other Voices, Other Rooms''.
[Slide, p. 2.]
References
Works cited
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*{{cite book , title=The Male Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliography , last=Young , first=Ian , publisher=The Scarecrow Press , location=Metuchen, New Jersey, edition=1st , year=1975 , isbn=978-0-8108-0861-4
1936 American novels
Novels with lesbian themes
Faber and Faber books
1930s LGBT novels
Roman à clef novels